You wouldn't like me if you made me angry...

May 7, 2006 : 13 t-shirts are ordered. $130 for the shirts, $41.50 for the shipping.
May 8, 2006 : 3 further t-shirts are ordered. $30 for the shirts, $11.50 for the shipping, $3 coupon for the order.
May 9, 2006 : A request was emailed to threadless to make the order a gift option for the purposes of customs charge reduction as the shirts were not for one person.
May 10, 2006 : Denial of gift option: "for return purposes" they do not offer this EASY to implement option.
May 16, 2006 : According to threadless.com, 13 shirts are shipped. No email notification sent.
May 23, 2006 : 3 t-shirts are shipped. Email notification received.
May 30, 2006 : 3 t-shirts arrive. Actual shipping cost: $7.50 (this becomes important)
June 1, 2006 : Wondering where the baker's dozen went, I email threadless citing lack of email and shirts. I am suspecting product was never sent.
June 2, 2006 : Response was swift, and included a tracking number. USPS says shipment arrived May 19. Canada Post shows it was held for 11 days in sorting.
June 3, 2006 : I email threadless to inform them that the shipment is being held by Canada Post and am suspecting something is up beyond customs holdings.
June 5, 2006 9:19am : Their reply was to have me contact customs. I suspect it will arrive in a day or so.
June 5, 2006 1:01pm :
"Hello Corinne!

We received your order back to us for insufficient address. Actually the note from the postal service stated \"No such Post Office.\" If you would like your order sent again, we will have to charge you for shipping. It will be an additional charge of $40.00 for shipping again.

Since we do not store your credit card information, you will need to provide the credit card # and expiration date, as well as an updated address. You can send the necessary information via email or fax it to us at 888.595.3258.

If you do not want to pay additional shipping, we can cancel it and refund your card the order total minus the shipping. Let us know what you would like to do."

My response is as follows:

This is absurd! I ordered this order a day, ONE DAY, before a smaller order was made. The smaller shipment arrived without a hitch. How can a company possibly justify $80 worth of shipping for 13 shirts? Both of my orders had the exact same address, postal code, everything was exactly the same except the quantity of shirts being sent. I KNOW my information submitted to your company was accurate as proven by the smaller shipment received.

These shirts are not just for me, as I emailed before the shipment was even made. The shirts were gifts to be distributed last month. My organization was providing both revenue to threadless and advertisement. The customer service from threadless.com has not been horrible, but it's been short and curt (which I am alright with, as it is online service). However, this latest surcharge, for something I know I have no hand in, is not promoting future relations with your company from me or my organization. I have already promised these shirts to people and I will have to request that the shipment is made (not to mention that I am going to be out $40 if I don't). I must, however, be very clear that if I am to pay an additional $40 to your company, this will personally be my last order, and I can assure other people in my organization who have also purchased your products (either online or via Voltage) will probably follow suit. It is a shame, as your products have not been the source of my disappointment.

If the loss of repeat customers is not enough incentive to forgo charging your client twice, consider the mathematics of what this charge is: The USPS website has informed me that for $40 worth of shipping (to Canada, from the US on 3-5 day shipping) the package must be 13lbs (or 1lb a shirt). I already paid $41.50 for a shipment that took one month from the date of order or 3 weeks from date of shipment according to your website to NOT arrive, for a package I am willing to wager is not 13lbs (unless threadless has a policy of mailing wet shirts). I'll grant that the men's shirts are not thin and probably are at the 6 oz. weight mark. I'll use the assumption that all the shirts I ordered are 6 oz. That means that the total weight of the fabric being shipped is about 4.875 lbs. I'll throw in some packaging to round it up to an even 6lbs. USPS says that shipment will cost you about $24 to ship to Canada on a 3-5 day shipping (Global Express Mail(tm) EMS). According to my math, you have already gained $17.50 from me for a shipment I have not received--and not because _I_ provided the wrong information. I have very little reason to not think that this is not a scam for threadless.com to gain either $35.00 or $57.50 from me by overcharging me twice (either by recognizing that an incorrect postal code on a large shipment is profitable or not caring about the end consumer and will charge arbitrary shipment costs--depends how cynical you are). If I give you $6.50 to ship it again, threadless will not gain $17.50 or $35 from me by overcharging shipping and I'm likely to not find this experience nearly as aggravating as I am.

Before I hand over my card information, I am going to contact my local post office to find out what I can do to prevent a third charge of $40 when my "postal office is not found" again. Paying threadless again just to have it bounce again is not exactly my idea of being fiscally responsible. From threadless.com, I would like a digital photograph clearly showing the label of the address it was sent to, the reason for its return to threadless and the postage stamp showing the date of shipment from you. Without these pieces, I cannot not judge what I need to do to ensure that I am not charged $120, $160, $200, etc. for shipping.

If you want to get the basic points from this, they are as follows:

1. I am at no fault for this charge. Had I put the wrong postal code (which is not unrealistic, as I have recently moved) I would feel stupid, but I'd suck up the $80 charge as it is no fault of yours or the postal service--this is not the case.
2. Knowing that this is not my fault, I am a little put off by the fact that threadless has gained $17.50 from me if I cancel my order or $35.00 if I say "sure, charge me $80". I see very little reason to hand over $80 for something that cost you $24 and me a nightmare.
3. I am grudgingly willing to pay the $40, but at a charge to threadless.com that exceeds $40, and not before I can guarantee that the shipment will arrive this time. I am 100% willing to pay $6.50 to cover the actual costs of shipping.

Signed by me.